


about today

by virtuosity



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Angst, F/M, Scotland, post-Sochi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-03 13:39:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16327301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virtuosity/pseuds/virtuosity
Summary: He had needed space.But after today he realized just how close he was to an endless amount of it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So apparently I'm doing this thing where every single song that shuffles up on Spotify gets me to write a VM fic. I've already started two more. This one is based on "About Today" by The National which is one of the most heart wrenching songs of all time and if you haven't listened to it, you [should](https://youtu.be/Ipx8qWt2fVA).

_May, 2015_

_Scotland_

It had been happening for more than a year and part of him had known it, had willed it even, but faced with the stark reality of what it meant, he found that he couldn’t catch his breath.

He was so caught up in bitterness and anger and his own pain that he just couldn’t see past. He’d been wrapped in his own suffering and lashed out, painting everything around him with blame - skating, Meryl, Charlie, Marina, _her_. Especially her. Sochi had stripped him of some essential part of himself and reflexively he shucked everything that had been close to it, casting it off as though it burned.

He had needed space.

But after today, he realized just how close he was to an endless amount of it.

The night before, he’d locked eyes with her across the bar as the slow tones of “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” drifted through the crowd, that strange _something_ reconnecting them for the first time in as long as he could remember. It stung, like peeling a scab that had yet to fully heal, and with a jolt he had severed the link with a desperate glance away and a rough hand around Kaitlyn’s waist.

He’d wanted to think nothing of it, despite how the moment had lodged in his mind like shrapnel, but the sting of that moment had nothing on the emptiness the morning brought with it.

She just wasn’t there anymore.

She looked like Tessa, and she sounded like Tessa, and, try as he might not to notice, she smelled like Tessa, but some vital part of her was - not gone exactly, but unreachable. Unreachable was not something he had ever felt with Tessa; even when she had come back after her first surgery, full of hurt and fury and ferocity, he’d been able to see it, to see _her_. He felt the intensity of her anger and her drive, because regardless of how upset she was at him, she was still Tessa and he was still Scott and they had spent the majority of their lives within reach of each other. They didn’t know how to be any other way.

This wasn’t that. It wasn’t a cold silence or a charged glare. It was...nothing. It wasn’t feeling, it was the whole absence of it.

They may as well have just met, not spent nearly every day of their lives pressed against each other, not shared the highest highs and the lowest lows, not lost themselves in each other again and again only to stumble out the other side and into other people’s arms, not worked toward the ultimate goal only to achieve it and lose it, one right after the other.

The change was palpable to him, he could feel it in the breaths and steps he took, but found himself unable to do anything about it.

He watched and carefully felt out each every part of where she should fit against him, mentally and emotionally and found them ragged and adrift.

But he said nothing.

The day’s activities had come and gone in a blur of handshakes and food and pictures and then it was over, a sudden halt, and he realized that at some point Tessa had just slipped away into the crowd, her physical absence now matching her absence from his mind and his heart.  

At the end of the day, as Kaitlyn slept quietly beside him, he let down that wall he had built after Sochi and the stark reality of where he’d let his life get to hit him like a shot:

Tessa was gone.

And he hadn’t asked why.  

How had he not realized it sooner? How had he let his own pain overtake them both? How was it his hands had never dropped her, but not once but twice he had lost hold of her just the same, sending them crashing into the ground?

How had he not seen how close he was? The truth was that he hadn’t wanted to, couldn’t handle the thought of it, but just as much couldn’t handle what it would take to get them back to where they used to be, the jagged climb back to her, the one that would tear him apart as much as it would put him back together.

Then with sudden clarity, he realized there was no other option. This nothingness with her was impossible, it was unlivable. He needed to start that painful process of retrieving them from the rubble - she had been waiting for him to join her, to help her, and he’d left her there alone, one hand reaching out for a hand that refused to hold hers.

But, like a blow to the head, he realized that it might be too late.  

He scrabbled for his phone, pulling it from the nightstand and sat up, turning away from the woman sleeping next to him, his legs over the edge of the bed, the cold of the floor on his skin making the fraughtness of the moment even starker.

Without really thinking he typed and sent, watching, hope in his throat that the message would even deliver.

It did.

_Hey. Are you awake?_

He stared at the screen, an aching yearn in every blink of his eyes, willing the message to be read, willing the phone to show him those three little dots that told him she was there, that he had reached out and she was reaching back.

Nothing.

Minutes passed and he felt his desperation grow. He pushed to his feet and began to pace, his eyes locked to the now dark screen of his phone, looking for any sign of life, anything to indicate a response.

Nothing.

Another message sent into the void.

 _Tessa please_.

Then, suddenly, with a flicker of light and a flutter of dots, she was there.

_Yeah._

Then another.

_I’m right here._

He was surprised at the sob that caught in his throat. She was right there.

Softly he typed his response.

_Can I ask you about today?_

The dots flickered to life again only to stop. Then start again. And -

_What do you mean?_

Quickly, before he truly thought it through, he had typed and sent the question he truly needed answered, the articulation of the fear that had snapped at his heels as he’d paced.

_How close am I to losing you?_

Those dots, those fucking dots that held the answers to his entire future, flickered to life again.

Then they stopped.

And started.

And stopped.

And didn’t start again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rift kept growing, the last eighteen years slipping away like sand through her fingers.
> 
> And it didn’t seem to bother him at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right so by very loud and convincing demand here's a second chapter. This time from Tessa's point of view. 
> 
> I am still a little wary about extended this because I'm afraid that adding to it will take away the intensity of the first part, BUT you guys have made it very clear that you want more and I just can't say no :P
> 
> Let me know what you think!

She’d thought that they would come back from this.

They’d needed the space, she couldn’t deny it, but she expected that at the end they would return, stronger and...different. Instead, the rift kept growing, the last eighteen years slipping away like sand through her fingers.

And it didn’t seem to bother him at all.

They were in a pub in Scotland and his eyes met hers across the room while that damn song played and then, in a second, he was gone. He severed that connection, the one they hadn’t had in so long, so quickly and decisively that it felt like a punch to the stomach.

So she was done. She had nothing left to give, and he didn’t want anything from her anyway. Not anymore.

That night she sat in her room and wept. She wept for who they were and who they could have been; she mourned the death of them. She lost herself completely to the grief and when she woke, it was gone. It was all gone.

Tentatively, she scanned the edges of her mind and found them blunt and dulled. Where before she could feel Scott even when he wasn’t near and read his mood with a look, she now felt nothingness. It wasn’t painful or lonely, it was just...blank; it wasn’t even an absence, it was as though it had never existed in the first place.

She stood and looked in the mirror, cataloging every part of her face, getting to know this new version of herself. The one that was officially Just Tessa. No Scott.

Then, with a determined nod, she turned away and began to get ready.

She was fine. She was.

And she stayed fine. Through pictures, his arm around her shoulders, through his continually anxious attempts to catch her eye as he sensed a change in her, through the trip to Stromness, through dinner and laughter, and, finally, as she slipped away to her room. The quiet solitude felt like a breath of fresh air.

Day one without Scott - done.

Now for the rest of them.

She collapsed into bed, exhaustion taking her quickly. At some point, she found herself in a half-asleep haze, the sound of what she thought might have been her phone vibrating on the nightstand somewhere to her left. She wasn’t sure if it was real or not and she wasn’t awake enough to check, so she laid there, dreams mixing with reality. Suddenly, she was overwhelmed by the feeling that she was looking for something but didn’t even know what it was.

Then with another loud buzz, she woke. Her eyes opened to the soft blinking of a notification on her phone and she reached out to pick it up, fully aware of who it was likely to be. She was right.

Ten minutes ago he had sent:

_Hey. Are you awake?_

Then a moment ago:

 _Tessa please_.

Her curiosity outweighed her better judgment and she replied.

_Yeah._

_I’m right here._

Quickly, a response popped up.

_Can I ask you about today?_

She swallowed hard and started to respond, hesitating for a moment as she considered how much to reveal, and then sent -

_What do you mean?_

Almost immediately, his response lit up her screen.

_How close am I to losing you?_

Her skin prickled. There it was.

She started to respond and stopped. She couldn’t find the words.

She tried again. And stopped.

Maybe, in the end, there was nothing to be said. Maybe there just weren’t any words for this. Silence would be answer enough. She set the phone back down softly and slid down into bed, curling into the warmth of the blankets.

She pretended that she was still fine, letting herself believe that she could just drift back to sleep as if she hadn’t just officially lost her best friend. She’d known it the night before. But now he knew it too. There was no going back.  

And yet, when the knock at the door came, she wasn’t surprised. It was never going to be that simple.

Part of her wondered if on some level that was really why she hadn’t responded. She didn’t know what she was thinking anymore, found her feelings muddled, like she was lost in a fog, unclear on where she was or where she was supposed to be going.

Quietly, she stood and moved to open the door.

And there he was.  

She stepped aside and he moved past her into the room. Closing the door, she leaned back against it, watching him pace restlessly.

“Why won’t you answer me?” he said, his voice low and rough.

With a deep breath, she said, “You know the answer already. Do you need me to say it?” Her tone wasn’t harsh, it wasn’t meant to wound, it was only what it was - an answer.

“Yes,” he said vehemently, turning to look at her. The wild look in his eye caught her off guard and it shook something loose inside of her.

“Scott, don’t make this harder than it needs to be,” she said softly, fighting to keep that comforting blankness, desperate to remain in that state of carefully constructed neutrality.

“Make what harder than it needs to be, Tessa? If you can’t say it then how can you do it?” he replied.

“There’s nothing left here,” she said with a sigh.

“You can’t mean that,” he answered, a bewildered look on her face.

“I can’t? Do you want to tell me what’s left? Because I’m at a loss here,” she replied earnestly.

“What’s left? Tess, you and I, we’re left.”

“Are we? Because I’ve been holding this up on my own for a long time, Scott. And I can’t do it anymore,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t act like you don’t know what’s been going on. It’s not fair.”

He stilled, and they stared at each other.

“I don’t…” he started. “I don’t know what to do.”

She gave a half-hearted shrug. “I know. That’s why this had to happen.”

And with that he wilted, slumping to the bed, eyes still locked to hers. He was wounded and, as it always was with him, her first instinct was to fix it, to do everything in her power to make it better, but she stopped herself. That wasn’t what she did anymore, it wasn’t who they were anymore. She dug her nails into the palms of her hands, fighting the thought that it was like she was watching him bleed out and choosing to not help.

“Tessa, I can’t lose you.”

“Scott,” she whispered. “You already have.”

He broke, his head falling to his hands.

It took every ounce of willpower for her to stay where she was. That nothingness that had protected her all day was officially gone, and she was ripped raw. Everything in her _hurt_ , her head throbbed and her eyes blurred.

She closed her eyes and counted the beats of her heart until it occurred to her that that was something she used to do in his arms. Her eyes shot open.

He was looking at her, his eyes dark and shrewd.  
  
She stared back at him, doing her best to keep everything that she felt off her face.

“No. I haven’t,” he said quietly.

“What?”

“I haven’t lost you.”  
  
She started to shake her head and he stood, taking a step forward.

“T, I know you too well.” He took another step, carefully, as though he could spook her if he moved too quickly.

“Please don’t do this,” she whispered.

“You don’t mean it, why are you doing this?” he asked softly.

“I do mean it.”

“You don’t.”  
  
“I do. I have to.”

He took a final step and stopped right in front of her. Not crowding her so that she couldn’t escape if she wanted to, but close enough that she couldn’t shut him out. “Why?”

She splintered, a sob caught in her throat. “Scott, you don’t want me the way that I want you.”  
  
He opened his mouth to respond but she cut him off. Any wall, any protection, that she hoped to have was gone.  

“And that used to be okay. We had skating and our career, and wanting you was sort of this hum in the back of my mind. It was always there, but it was comfortable, like a habit. It didn’t affect anything, not really. But I don’t have that buffer anymore, Scott,” she said fiercely. “I did the year of yes, I wanted to prove that I didn’t need you and the truth is I don’t.”

His face fell slightly at her words, but she rushed on.

“I don’t _need_ you, Scott. I can live a life without you, I know that now. I am so much stronger than I thought I was. I can stand on my own. But,” she took a deep breath and on the exhale she let slip, “I _want_ you.”   

Her voice grew stronger as she pressed on. “And you don’t want me. And that’s okay. But I can’t hold up this weird, undefinable something we have by myself. So it has to be nothing. We have to be nothing.”

He was looking at her like he’d never seen her before.

“Please, Scott,” she said firmly.

He stammered slightly. “Uh, no.”

In a moment she went from fierce to frustrated. “Why not?”

“I can’t do that.”

With a huff she pushed at him and stepped past him into the room. “You’re an ass,” she said hotly. “You are so selfish. I really thought maybe after everything that happened in Sochi you would have finally grown out of this.”

“Tess-”

“No!” she snapped. “It’s always about you. I always have to overlook how I feel to make things easier for you. I’m not doing it anymore.”

“Tess, I’m not asking you to! I’m telling you that you’re wrong. You think I don’t want you, but you’re wrong.”

She gave a strangled laugh. “No, you don’t. You just don’t know what it’s like to live without me, and you’re scared.”

“Of course I’m scared! But not for the reasons you seem to think. You aren’t the only one who went out and had their year, Tessa! It hasn’t been easy and I’ve fucked up a lot, but I know that I can live a life without you. I can be happy without you and with her and with this being how life is, but it’s not what I _want_ ,” he said in a rush, breathing hard.  

She looked at him, arms crossed stubbornly.

He continued, “You have always been stronger than you gave yourself credit for. You’ve been the strongest person in any room you were in since you were eight years old. You’re strong and ambitious and cunning and _sweet_ and loving and tender all at the same time. You are the biggest contradiction and the most complicated person I’ve ever met. You frustrate the hell out of me! But you’re you! And that’s all I want from you. You just went from telling me how much you want me to calling me a selfish ass in thirty seconds. That’s everything.”

He stared at her as the words filtered into her brain.

She wanted so badly to believe him, but she just couldn’t. This was what he did, he panicked and he made big decisions and then next week it would be different and all of this would be for nothing. Sometimes she imagined him as a well-intentioned but overexcited puppy - he just wanted to make people happy.

Consequences and forethought weren’t his strong suit.

Also, sometimes, he knew exactly what promises he was breaking. And to who.

“Scott,” she started evenly. “You don’t-”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh my _god_. You’re frustrating me right now. You can’t just decide what I want for me. I’m not twenty years old anymore, Tessa. I know what I’m doing. You don’t have to be right all the time.”

“You think this is about me being right?” she asked.

“Isn’t it always?” he snapped back.  

“This isn’t about me!” she bit out. “You’re not exactly great at following through on promises.”

His eyes softened. “I know that.”

“So what’s different this time?” she asked.

He sighed. “Everything.”

She trusted Scott with her life, he’d never dropped her, he’d hurt himself to avoid hurting her, but the truth was that that was only on the ice. Off the ice, he’d dropped her many, many times. And that couldn’t be ignored.

She shook her head softly, and his gaze dropped to the floor.

Suddenly, his hands were gripping her waist and his forehead was against hers and she could feel his breath, rough against her lips.

But he didn’t kiss her.

“Fuck, Tess,” he said, his voice low. “I really want to show you how wrong you are. I want to kiss you and make it _very_ clear that I know what I’m doing and what I feel. But I can’t.”

She felt his fingers tighten on her waist, as though he was reigning himself in.

“You can’t?” she whispered.

“No.” He pulled away and took a step back from her. “Because of her.”

She sighed. _Well that was fast_ , she thought wearily. It usually took him a few days to change his mind like that.  

“I can’t kiss you until I tell her.”

A tingle ran down her spine. “What?”

“I don’t know if I can convince you, but I’m going to try. And I can’t do that until I’m honest with her. She deserves that. It wouldn’t be right,” he said.

Something released in her at his words, a soft warmth spreading through chest. She stammered a response, unable to articulate exactly what she felt.

Consequences.

Forethought.

He leaned forward and gave her a soft kiss to the the forehead, muttering, “I’m going to show you, Tess" against her skin. With that, he turned and purposely left the room, pulling the door shut behind him.  

“I think you just did,” she said quietly to the empty room.


End file.
